Emporium

The titular in-game store Emporium is a supermarket that caters to Entities from across the multiverse. It occupies its own plane and is a subsidiary company of the Orbital Conglomerate™, who have provided the following audio to introduce Entities to the history of Emporium.

audio transcript

Albert, a TV-headed implement who presents the face of Emporium, is likely to be well-known to your character from most of Emporium's advertising material. A friendly lo-fi face often seen gesticulating enthusiastically with a navy umbrella, Albert not only represents Emporium's brand, but acts as a friend and guide to customers and employees alike by means of a combined security system, catalogue, information point, and customer service AI that operates throughout the supermarket. To read more about how the Albert Interface will be represented over Discord, please see here.

As Emporium is one of the few multidimensional superstores at which an Entity may choose to do their shopping, demand for entering Emporium is exceptionally high. Entities who wish to enter Emporium are required to queue for several eons, within which time they may go about their business as usual, and are notified once they reach the end of the queue, at which point they are instantly transported to Emporium's atrium if they accept the invitation.

Customers are admitted to Emporium in batches every time Emporium begins a new seasonal cycle, and may stay in-store for the duration of the cycle. While customers will usually opt to make the most of this precious time in the store, they can leave whenever they like, opening up spaces for any new customers who have opted into the possibility of a shorter stay when they entered the queue. All customers are required to leave the store once the cycle has come to an end so that a new batch of customers may arrive.

Employees enter Emporium via a queue of their own, brought in from across the multiverse through a seasonal application form either due to genuine interest, or to work off community service requirement or debt. Your character may have filled out the application form to work for a seasonal cycle, or had the form filled out on their behalf; debtors and wardens are known to submit forms on behalf of candidates deemed suitable.

Employees underwent no interview process as such, but would have been screened for basic aptitude to serve the store’s needs for as long as is needed to resolve what brought you here. Some applicants applied a while ago, while some were only recent applicants. While the recruitment process is kept secret from employees, the working theory is that suitable candidates were chosen at random from the pool of all applicants.

All player characters have arrived at Emporium at approximately the same time, shortly before the start of our first session, which will mark the start of a new seasonal cycle.

Emporium proudly presents itself as the go-to supermarket for anything and everything you could possibly desire. From the core elements that make up your homeworld, to toys and trinkets to bring home to your families, abstract concepts that melt on your tongue, and physical items with which an Implement may wish to replace their head, you can find nearly anything if you look long enough!

When you find something you'd like, simply head to checkouts to have your item scanned. The Emporium scanner will calculate the item's worth in Soulcoins, which an employee will be happy to help you convert into other assets you may possess, such as your homeplane's gravity, its colours, its tallest most magnificent mountain, or a core part of yourself (represented by Quirks or Attributes).

Emporium does not condone the sale of beings with souls. For OC elaboration on this, see our Conduct and Themes Policy.

“Emporium would like to remind its customers and employees that they are bound to remain corporeal while inside the store, and contain their forms within three dimensions!”
- Albert

As Emporium occupies its own plane, the manifestation of reality inside the store may not be quite the same as on your character's homeworld. Your character may be used to being incorporeal, omniscient, omnipresent, astronomically large, or impossible to perceive, but for the purposes of their shopping spree, they have had to assume a form that abides by Emporium regulations, whether that is an avatar of their true form, a temporary vessel they have occupied, or simply their usual body. The form an Entity assumes while in-store may be referred to as their manifestation, and must be corporeal, of a size that the supermarket can cater to, and cannot occupy more than three dimensions.

While psychic networks such as the Collective Consciousness and individual psychic links are able to exist within Emporium, and Entities with far-seeing abilities may retain these in some form, full-scale omniscience is not possible within Emporium.

Omnipresence, quantum superposition, and the co-location of more than one Entity are also not possible within Emporium. To facilitate movement between aisles in a manner that Entities may be familiar with, Emporium has a designated Warp Zone on its shop floor, within which any Entity may teleport to another location at will, regardless of how they are able to move on their homeworld. This manner of movement is known as warping, and is restricted to the shop floor for player characters, excluding the Warehouse and the Administration Offices. To read more about how this is represented over Discord, see here.

As Emporium caters to a diverse range of Entities from all across the multiverse, a universal translation matrix is operational across the store at all times. This is effective on any form of communication including auditory, visual, psychic and smelled. For more information on the translation of names, see here.